ABSTRACT
The basic reason why industrial-capitalist development destroys the environment is that capitalism endorses and thrives on liberalism of the market, where the individual, Homo oeconomicus, is given sanctity and priority over the community, allowing her to pursue her profit-maximizing interests ‘relatively unfettered and oblivious to the social consequences of her actions’ (Shutkin 2000: 41). The fact that capitalism is subversive of the integrity of the natural environment and social values is fairly obvious, but socialist experiments in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China have also led to the degradation of their environments. Both Soviet Union and China launched gigantic drives for industrialization to achieve socialism’s liberatory goal, with monumental consequences on the environment, including the human environment. The tragic death of the Aral Sea (see Section 4.2.2) and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster are just a few examples. Such drives in socialist countries for industrialization at the cost of the environment were primarily inspired by an urge to fortify state power with a strong economy. Porritt and Winner (1988: 11) have identified industrialization itself as ‘a “super ideology” embraced by socialist countries as well as by the capitalist West.’ Industrialization in both capitalist and socialist economy involves massive production of goods, requires massive amounts of energy and raw materials, and entails drastic changes in landscapes. All these lead to rapid destruction of the natural environment. This in turn endorses the epistemic dichotomy between nature and the human, a dichotomy that underlies developmentality and reinforces the Baconian programme of humankind’s conquest of nature.
